Death and resurrection are the central ideas of nature and Christianity. We see them in the transformation of the chrysalis, in the buried seed bursting into the bud and blossom of the spring, in the transformation of the winding sheet of winter to the many tinted robes of spring. We see it all through the Bible in the symbol of circumcision, with its significance of death and life, in the passage of the Red Sea and the Jordan leading out and leading in, and in the Cross of Calvary and the open grave of the Easter morning. We see it in every deep spiritual life. Every true life is death-born, and the deeper the dying the truer the living. We doubt not the months that have been passing have shown us all many a place where there ought to be a grave, and many a lingering shred of the natural and sinful which we would gladly lay down in a bottomless grave. God help us to pass the irrevocable sentence of death and to let the Holy Ghost, the great undertaker, make the interment eternal. Then our life shall be ever budding and blossoming and shedding fragrance over all. MAY 9. “All hail” (Matt. xxviii. 9). It was a stirring greeting which the Lord of Life spake to His first disciples on the morning of the resurrection. It is a bright and radiant word which in His name we would speak to His beloved children at the commencement of another day. It means a good deal more than appears on the surface. It is really a prayer for our health, but which none but those who believe in the healing of the body can fully understand. A thoughtful friend suggested once that the word “hail” really means health, and it is just the old Saxon form of the word. We all know that a hale person is a healthy person. Our Lord’s message, therefore, was substantially that greeting which from time immemorial we give to one another when we meet. “How is your health?” “How are you?” or, better still, “I wish you health.” Christ’s wish is tantamount to a promise and command. It is very similar to the Apostle John’s benediction to his dear friend Gaius, and we would re-echo it to our beloved friends according to the fulness of the Master’s will. MAY 10. “I am alive forevermore” (Rev. i. 18).